


bittersweet

by johnsonzzzyc



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 乐华七子NEXT | NEX7, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Excessive use of the F word, M/M, Unrequited Love, but still happy ending?, i left some ships out so it won't ruin the surprises hehe, lowkey crack lowkey angst, meteor garden bc i love that show, nvm highkey crack, there's a phineas and ferb reference somewhere in there too, unnecessary amount of idol producer references bc i miss it, wenjun stop friendzoning yourself challenge failed, wenjun's a fool, zhengting's a crackhead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 21:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15672006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnsonzzzyc/pseuds/johnsonzzzyc
Summary: "there’s no point in focusing on feeling sad. haven’t you heard that saying that the sun comes after the rain?”“okay, but that’s stupid. the sun is always there. if you choose to ignore the clouds.”(in which zhengting is intent on living his life like a full-blown soap opera and wenjun realizes that some people are just destined to be the supporting cast.)





	bittersweet

wenjun really despised the first days of each semester.

he had been in university for three years now and yet he just couldn’t seem to get used to watching all the freshmen run around like headless chickens and fish out of water, scrambling to find their academic advisors and revise and confirm their schedules - crowding up every single walkway, either crying out of relief or sobbing from distraught - in the process.

and - _ugh_ \- not to mention. the _fucking questions._

apparently each freshman seemed to have some sort of blaring misconception that every college student was extremely sociable and happy to make friends and help their struggling underclassmen. and even though it was the start of the spring semester and they should honestly know better by now, wenjun was still bombarded five too many times on the 10-minute (well, now 20-minute) walk from his dorm to the cafeteria by 16-year-old-looking children that had been forced to drop the security of their first-semester schedules and reevaluate their entire existences.

needless to say, wenjun didn’t like talking that much.

what he disliked even more than unnecessary talking was being run into by stupid people with eyes turned incompetent while in a rush. so he held back the loudest yell (mostly because raising his voice above a halfhearted murmur was notably uncharacteristic) when he felt the force of a bull knock into his shoulder, accompanied by the cold rush of liquid streaming down his shirt from the cup in his hand and the sound of a screamed “ah, mama!” from his perpetrator. _fucking freshmen._

what probably made the whole experience even more annoying was that his so-called perpetrator was probably one of the most beautiful people he’d ever seen. honestly screw the 16-year-old-looking, prepubescent-seeming comment he’d mentally made earlier. his assailant had unceremoniously dropped the fattest stack of papers wenjun had ever seen, but had abandoned the struggle of trying to shove them into a pile upon seeing the abstract coffee painting that was now wenjun’s only white shirt. his eyes widened to match wenjun’s - whose dilated pupils were shamelessly trying to process all the images his eyeball nerves were receiving - and quickly reached back into his bag to pull out a travel-size pack of napkins that wenjun would have normally thought of as extremely moronic from any average-looking person.

a very pretty boy with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes and nice ears (wenjun was quite possibly crazy or unreasonably deprived of good-looking people at his mediocre-visuals-at-best university) and pink lips and a perfectly straight nose was now gently pressing at his chest. was he living his best life?

and then the pretty boy opened his mouth, what the fuck.

his voice was slightly high-pitched, likely even higher pitched than normal from his obvious stress, and it sounded like he spoke all of his words from the back of his throat instead of his actual mouth. what wenjun managed to actually comprehend from the other’s rambling and rushed muttering sounded like absolute gibberish. 

“oh my god, i’m _so_ sorry. it’s my first day. well, not like first day as in first day - sorry, that was probably confusing. it’s not my first day of university - haha, that would be weird, considering a semester has already passed, but you’d be surprised by how many people transfer in halfway through.” cue gibberish. “- sometimes people think i’m an exchange student but, nope, i’m 100 percent chinese. except, haha, i did a magazine ad in korea this one time, so i wouldn’t blame them. it got pretty famous, actually. i had a korean name and everything - it was jungjung - ” a considerable amount of garbling about his time in korea, except wenjun didn’t know a thing about the country or who “oon-key” and “hung-soap” were.

wenjun was pretty sure his shirt was as dry as it was going to get, considering this jungjung? boy had been continuously dabbing at it with quite an intensity, but the boy just seemed to press even faster and left literally no room for breathing, much less room for getting interrupted. “but, yeah, it’s my first day working in the freshmen advising office and it’s so busy, like, what the fuck? and the printer wasn’t working in our office so i literally had to run all the way to the senior advising office to print!” he, no shit, _tutted._ was this boy living in a real-life chinese drama? the blotting got even faster and more passionate, to a point where he was practically beating wenjun’s chest with a fist poorly cushioned by a square of one-ply tissue. “but i didn’t really know how to use the printer so a lot of the schedules turned out double-sided or black-and-white or upside-down and i had to reprint but i didn’t have time to check which schedules were bad so i just took them all in one stack and that’s why i ran into you because the stack was so big and i was in such a rush.” he stepped back - good timing, too, because wenjun had an immorally thin layer of fat lining his body and his ribs were starting to crack - and sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand like he’d just run a marathon. wenjun concluded that he’d probably wasted enough breath to have done the equivalent. “oh. by the way, my name’s zhengting. zhu zhengting.”

wenjun coughed, smoothing down his shirt - which had been browned artistically enough to be considered street fashion but was now extremely manhandled into an unforgiving wrinkling. he looked like a sad, elongated prune. “right. zhengting. i’m wenjun. uh... isn’t it impossible to print something upside-down if you can just turn the paper around?”

zhengting looked at him and blinked slowly, like he couldn’t quite process the words, then very quickly. his mouth dropped into a disbelieving gape as he frantically looked around at the lifeless papers littering the ground around them before dropping his head back and whining loudly (wenjun would have probably literally fainted at the noise seven minutes prior, back when pretty boy was pretty, _quiet_ boy, before he had been forced to learn about the double-edged-sword qualities of his pink lips). “oh my god. i’m going to get so fired. or expelled. and this will go on my record and no school will take me and i’ll be forced to move back to korea and rely purely on my visuals to make money and the stress will make me break out and then i’ll probably get fired -”

at this point, wenjun didn’t even know if even nine percent of the words coming from zhengting’s mouth were directed at him, or if he just liked to voice out his thoughts like that. so he tried his luck, shuffling away as stealthily as his beanpole stature would allow him to with an occasional “right” or “yeah” before he was out of sight.

he was ten meters away and almost around a tree before a flurry of blonde hair, barely visible above a haphazard heap of schedules, flashed past him. “hopefully see you later, wenjun! may fate bring us together once again!” 

wenjun stared, unimpressed, at zhengting’s running form in the distance. he had interacted (if a one-sided conversation counted as an interaction between two people) with him for hardly ten minutes, but he’d never met anyone quite as loud or dramatic or brainless - and his roommate was ding zeren, for fuck’s sake.

the rest of his walk (now directed back towards his dorm so he could shower and change clothes) was accessorized by the occasional paper that had flown from the top of zhengting’s stack and drifted stubbornly into the dust left behind him, a constant reminder that almost seemed to ridicule him and his misfortune.

yeah. wenjun really despised first days.

\---

“woah, you actually showered for once?”

“shut up, ding dong. at least i own more than one fucking shirt.”

“hey! it’s efficient and eco-friendly this way!”

“sure, whatever.” ... “uh, do you happen to know a zhu zhengting?”

“yeah! he’s in my cal class. pretty nice dude. he really likes answering questions.”

“right.”

\---

it was a saturday and wenjun didn’t have any upcoming due dates to worry about, so he really didn’t have a reason as to why he _shouldn’t_ go to a party and get drunk. well, except for the looming threat of a deteriorating liver, but zeren wouldn’t acknowledge that as he threw a socially acceptable jacket at him and dragged him out of their dorm.

zeren had left his side to find yanchen as soon as they’d entered, entirely too familiar with the layout of the frat house (considering how often he visited his boyfriend there). so the night found wenjun, lanky noodle that he was, meandering through the crowd at xingjie’s party, tipping his cup in greeting at people who he cared enough about to say hi to but not enough to start conversation with. so pretty much everyone.

wenjun sometimes liked parties because it gave him a way to occasionally reconfirm his friendships with people, minimal effort involved - just hand a drink to someone or clap them on the back in support when they were playing beer pong and that was it. otherwise, he’d have to take time out of his own schedule and invite them out to coffee shops and talk to them for an extended period of time before making some excuse about having to feed his pet turtle, bevan, that he didn’t own and promptly leaving two hours early. also, it wasn’t bad to indulge from time to time. college sucked and wenjun still had graduate school waiting for him if really wanted to take the whole professor route, so there was no harm in drinking intermittently and trying to convince himself that he could do this for another five or so years.

sometimes, wenjun didn’t like parties, though. when the beer was too strong and the music too loud and the rooms too crowded and the smell of sweat and cheap perfume just a little too potent. that night was one of those times. especially because xiao gui and xingjie were in charge of the festivities - namely the djing, and the two music majors were convinced that it was social courtesy to single-handedly pop every single eardrum with the power of their speakers alone.

when the song had changed from tropical edm to a trap remix of some song that wouldn’t stop saying “mack daddy” over and over again and xingjie had grabbed the mic, magically standing on one of the nearby speakers to tell everyone to shake their bodies on the floor (pointedly yelling right into wenjun’s ear in the process), he decided he’d had enough.

he dismissed the idea of explaining his departure plans to zeren, who was preoccupied with yanchen on the couch - they somehow managed to look miraculously domestic, all intertwined and giggly amongst the flashing lights and grinding bodies. wenjun considered the five-minute walk between his current location and his bed, but his bladder screamed in protest before he could even take a step towards the door. his ears throbbed scornfully but he had his priorities, so wenjun made his way upstairs (it was party logic 101 that the downstairs bathrooms were too traumatizing to even try, no matter how desperate; sophomore hu zhibang found out the hard way and hadn’t come to a party since).

one of the most redeeming (or merciful) characteristics about xingjie’s parties was that yanchen was the biggest neat freak, even going so far as to clean up _during_ the actual party, and going to the bathroom wasn’t the quickest, foolproof way to contract a urinary tract infection. if wenjun went to the farthest bathroom, tucked right into the corner at the end of the hall and coincidentally only used by closely acquainted (thanks, ding zeren) partygoers who know where it was, the constant stream of “mack daddy”s blasting throughout the first floor was only a soft hum against the walls. thank god.

wenjun was focused solely on the awaiting toilet as he moved to close the door, so he didn’t hear the running footsteps coming down the hall. due to his rendered-useless ears, he didn’t even hear the yelp coming from a body just outside until said body was pushing into the room through an inch of space and slamming the door right behind him. wenjun stared, dumbfounded, at his hand, which had been casually pushing at the wood. and then at the door, closed. and then at the back of the head of the random human being that had invaded his space. he just needed to pee.

random human being was still turned around and seemed to be intently listening through the wood. at least his haircut was nice, no mullet-in-progress to be seen.

“uh,” wenjun said, because the pressure against his abdomen weighed on his brain too - and he was never really taught how to tell someone to leave the bathroom so he can attend to personal needs.

random human being finally turned around and, what the fuck, it was fucking zhu zhengting. wenjun blinked as zhengting’s frown immediately brightened into a smile. “oh my god, wenjun! i told you fate would bring us together again!” he exclaimed happily, clapping his hands and acting like he hadn’t just interrupted wenjun’s golden throne duties.

“yes, wow. hello,” wenjun responded idiotically because his hand was still on the door and he was looking down at zhengting, whose back was against the wall and whose eyes were looking right up at him. the whole thing seemed a little too cliche and zhengting may have had approximately one brain cell but he was still pretty as fuck and wenjun’s eyes were working perfectly fine (his sight possibly even heightened by his broken hearing). “uh, i need to go to the bathroom.”

“oh!” zhengting’s eyes widened and he covered his mouth with his hands in embarrassment. a bright flush seeped into the parts of his face that weren’t hidden. “sorry!” the muffled words were even more muffled as he swiftly relocated his head towards the door.

“um, okay. don’t look?” wenjun was still dazed at the whole situation, because how did almost 21 years of life culminate into peeing with a pretty somewhat-stranger two meters away?

one of zhengting’s arms pushed backwards and waved at him in encouragement. his other arm was propped against the door, cushioning his head. at least his back looked nice, clad in a sheer white top that barely hid anything - but wenjun really shouldn’t have been thinking about that as he stood himself in front of a toilet. “no worries! pretend i have no eyes. i wouldn’t take advantage of you like that anyway, new friend. my mom brought me up better than that. i wonder what she would think if she knew what kind of situation i was in right now. well, first she’d tell me to never go to a party in the first pla-”

“i-i’m done,” wenjun coughed out. he was secretly grateful zhengting had abnormal talking tendencies because he doesn’t know what the fuck he would have done if the trickling had outsounded the music from downstairs.

zhengting sighed in relief, immediately doing a turnabout and fanning his face with a hand like _he_ was the one with the compromised dignity, and then continued talking like he hadn’t been interrupted. “- and then she would tell me i should probably be more careful and make sure i don’t run into scary, buff men and spill my drink all over them.” he stopped fanning himself and jutted a thumb towards the hall behind him. “that’s why i’m here, by the way. scary buff man is waiting outside for me so he can beat little, pitiful ol’ me up for ruining his gucci shirt.” he cupped a hand around his mouth secretively, even though they were the only ones in the small bathroom, and dramatically whispered, “that shit was fake, though.”

“right,” wenjun muttered, washing his hands and drying them off before facing zhengting again. “so, is it your hobby to spill drinks on strangers or something?”

zhengting’s eyebrows raised and then he threw his head back in laughter. “oh, you’re funny. i hope it doesn’t become a hobby because the results seem to be inconsistent thus far. first time, i make a friend and then i have to run into a bathroom to save myself from fatality the second time.” 

wenjun didn’t say anything about the whole “friend” title zhengting seemed to like throwing around. well, it shouldn’t matter much anyway - they didn’t have each other’s contact information and they weren’t in any classes together (unless wenjun was just really that oblivious) - so it really was just an empty title. “it’s been, like, five minutes. i’m sure this supposed buff man following you probably got bored and went back to get another drink.”

the other boy hummed thoughtfully, momentarily leaning his ear against the door before straightening in satisfaction. “yeah. i think we’re clear.” wenjun sighed in relief. now, with a relieved bladder and slowly adjusting ears, he could finally go home and watch yoyo videos (a guilty pleasure) until he fell asleep.

zhengting turned the knob and wenjun casually followed him out into the hallway, only to run right into zhengting’s frozen back. the boy in front of him was slowly trying to walk backwards, but wenjun just stayed in place as he closed the door behind him, looking down at the top of zhengting’s head in confusion.

“oh!” a nervous chuckle, and wenjun repositioned his gaze forward - and then _up,_ because _holy shit, it was bu fan._ and bu fan did not look amused. his white shirt (wenjun might as well have been looking into a mirror from the past) was splattered with an unforgiving red and his eyebrows were huddling together enough that they threatened to conform into one straight line. at least, wenjun noted, zhengting was right about one thing; the “gucci” on his “gucci” shirt looked like it was written in crayola marker. except it was bu fan wearing it and no one would call out the captain of almost all the sports teams (except basketball, for some unknown reason) their university had to offer for wearing a poorly recreated shirt. “h-hello, scary buff man. i see you’re still outside.” zhengting breathed out nervously, awkwardly taking a step to the side like he was considering running away and then shuffling back into his original position after a prompt reevaluation. the two-almost-one set of eyebrows glaring at them raised just slightly. “sorry for taking so long. the bathroom is free now for... whatever you need it for.”

“why didn’t you tell me it was bu fan you pissed off? you would’ve had a higher survival rate jumping out the fucking window,” wenjun murmured from one side of his mouth, not wanting any unwarranted movement or noise offsetting bu fan’s uncontrollable temper. he felt the sudden urge to put up his hands like he was getting arrested and realized just how wimpish he was in the face of authority.

“i forgot his name!” zhengting hissed back.

“what are you two talking about?” bu fan barked suddenly, and wenjun flinched, his hands automatically coming up in front of him. yeah, the biggest wimp.

“nothing, sir!” wenjun coughed. “i mean, nothing.”

zhengting - fucking zhu zhengting - had somehow kept ahold of his humor in the middle of their life-or-death situation and managed to find wenjun’s faux passe _funny._

so he _giggled._

wenjun froze in terror. and he was still frozen as bu fan surged forward - if wenjun was a football scout, he would’ve given him all the jobs in the world at just the sight - with a fist out and zhengting - fucking zhu zhengting - ducked and wenjun felt his head fly backwards at the force of a - well, wenjun didn’t really know how to describe the immense strength of the force because of his limited knowledge and vocabulary. it was just really fucking strong.

bu fan must have been aiming for zhengting’s eye because wenjun, just several centimeters higher, was punched straight in the jaw. wenjun staggered back against the door of the bathroom, an intense throbbing bleeding throughout his face and teeth trembling and ears buzzing. and yet, his mind was surprisingly clear. or it was the complete opposite, because all he could think about as he supported himself with shaky arms was that at least he didn’t have to hear xingjie whooping into the mic every two seconds from downstairs.

his aggressor seemed to have sobered up with the attack and was, thank god, satisfied despite the incorrect target. wenjun blinked, though it didn’t help his blurry vision at all, and watched the wall-sized man walk away. he slowly turned his head to the figure standing in front of him. smooth hair, kind eyes, pink lips. vaguely familiar.

“mama?” he asked dazedly, waving the hand that wasn’t clutching his bruising face towards the person. zhengting grabbed the hand with his own shaky one and wenjun sighed in content at the comforting warmth. “hey, mom.”

“oh my god, are you okay? i’m so sorry. well, it’s not really my fault that your reflexes are slow and you chose to stand behind me, but still. and, jesus christ, i’m not your mom,” zhengting rambled, squatting in front of him to look him in the eye. 

wenjun frowned. “jesus christ?” man, the night was just getting weirder. first, a wall punched him and now the lord himself was holding his hand.

“oh my god,” he heard jesus say and laughed a little because of the irony. “i can’t believe bu fan literally managed to knock your brain cells out of your body. fuck, your face looks awful. we need to get you back to your room or something. where you do live?” wenjun felt a pull to straighten him up, and then a support from underneath his arm pushing him forward.

“blackwell 115. wait, wait. before we go,” wenjun mumbled as they clambered uncoordinatedly down the stairs. “is it insensitive of me to ask for a beer, christ-gege? or do you prefer wine?”

\---

“who is i- what are you doing here, zhengting?”

“first of all, your face somehow looks more awful than it did 24 hours ago. second of all, i thought i’d take advantage of the fact that i know where you live now.”

“what the hell? i thought you said your mom brought you up to not do that.”

“pfft, that doesn’t count. we’re friends now.”

“zhengting, it’s three in the morning and my face hurts.”

“i _know,_ but they released _meteor garden_ on netflix and i need someone to watch it with! please!” ... _“pretty please?”_

“ugh. why do you always do that thing?”

“what thing?”

 _“that_ thing! the thing where you always tilt your head. oh my god, see? now you’re doing it even more!” ... “this is so annoying, just come in and stop doing that fucking head tilt. do whatever the fuck you want but i’m falling asleep during the show.”

\---

there were several advantages to being the only three seniors occupying a little frat house. as xiao gui, xingjie, and yanchen knew, one of these benefits was throwing parties whenever they wanted to and making the underclassmen clean up afterwards (with yanchen as head cleaner, of course). another one was being able to kick the younger students out of the house and throwing get-togethers for their exclusive group of friends - yes, not a party, but an intimate get-together.

it was wenjun’s brand to be a little over fashionably late (for fear of being on time and looking like he actually _cared),_ so the gathering was already in full swing by the time he walked in. xiao gui slid a drink towards him almost immediately upon entry - because that was kind of his job - and wenjun walked around, taking a sip with one hand and halfheartedly raising his hand in multiple greetings with the other. the sights that welcomed him were to be expected: zeren and yanchen were cuddling on the living room’s couch, accompanied by xingjie, zhou rui, shengen, and chengcheng; ruibin, jeffrey, and ziyi were loitering in the kitchen and most likely deliberating the technicalities of jeffrey’s egg addiction; zhangjing, yanjun, and linong were occupying the dining table and seemed to be having an extremely heated discussion over the bag of chips in zhangjing’s hands; and xiao gui was drifting between the groups with his notable supply of energy, running by to slap chengcheng’s big head when he was busy on his phone, trying to flirt with ruibin and almost spilling his drink in the process, and stealthily grabbing a chip from the opened bag, much to the great upheaval of its discussers.

and, there, looking awfully out of place and yet perfectly positioned at the same time, was zhu zhengting. standing in the middle of it all like the eye of the hurricane or the epicenter of an earthquake, tutting (there he went again) as he massaged chengcheng’s throbbing head and fake-scolding xiao gui as he pulled him back by the ear and laughing naturally when xingjie and zhou rui physically fought over whether it was better to produce or compose first. 

wenjun wondered if zhengting had somehow been friends with all of his friends without him even being aware of his existence or if he just had a talent of seamlessly blending in with any group of people. then again, it did seem like the entire world was just one big serial drama and the script revolved around zhu zhengting.

and, with the same confidence and aura that exuded “me! film me!” as the boy wenjun was currently looking at, in walked another character. dark hair and black clothes, wearing sunglasses even though it was 9 p.m. and they were inside. and even though jeffrey also had a tendency to wear sunglasses inside, it gave off quite the different feeling. with egg-boy, it was “i’m jackie chan’s nephew and even though no one knows or cares, i need sunglasses for protection.” with this stranger, it was more like “i may not be famous, but i know i look like it, so i might as well,” a concept that was amplified as said stranger took off said sunglasses and revealed the type of face found in propaganda advertisements for plastic surgery.

“wenjun!” zhengting exclaimed, letting go of xiao gui’s ear in favor of plastic-surgery-boy’s hand and pulling plastic-surgery-boy along until they both stood in front of him. “meet my roommate, cai xukun!”

“oh, hi. i’m bi wenjun,” he said, throwing up a quick waving hand. cai xukun nodded softly and shyly lifted his own hand in response. his duality made wenjun raise an eyebrow. call him pessimistic but he was expecting another zhu zhengting scenario, but xukun genuinely seemed to be a naturally timid boy.

“great! now everyone’s friends!” somebody really needed to sit zhengting down one day and make him reevaluate his definition of “friend.” the small quirk to xukun’s mouth made wenjun think they were on the same page.

xukun, wenjun was beginning to think, was almost on his level of antisocial tendencies. he seemed to personally know ziyi, drifting towards the tall man’s side and hovering there, not quite participating in the conversation but still laughing at all the appropriate times. he wondered how such a character managed to handle literally having to live with somebody like his roommate, who was currently pushing, pulling, and dragging an unrelenting xiao gui towards ruibin’s direction, pinching his cheek and whispering conspicuously in his ear.

wenjun stared at the sight, half amused and half disturbed, before walking over to zeren. “how did he even show up here? he’s never come before.”

zeren looked away from lightly playing with yanchen’s fingers in his lap to raise an eyebrow at him. “i saw him in cal yesterday and extended an invite. what, aren’t you two close?”

“no?” wenjun furrowed his eyebrows. the two of them had had three previous encounters, none of which were encouraged by wenjun himself and were all initiated by a certain zhu zhengting - and “fate,” as the other liked to call it. 

“really? he’s the one who brought you home from that party two weeks ago. and didn’t you two have some late-night show marathon?” wenjun scoffed, taking a drink.

“those were hardly voluntary,” he murmured against the rim of the glass.

“whatever,” zeren said offhandedly, because yanchen was starting to get bored and had resorted to playing with zeren’s hair for attention. it was working. “zhengting’s good for you. maybe his talking will rub off on you.”

“oh, for sure!” zhengting popped up out of nowhere. wenjun jumped and some of the liquid intended for his mouth splashed up to his nose. he grumbled under his breath and wiped at his face with his sleeve. since when had the blonde boy relocated from his position with xiao gui and ruibin from the other side of the room anyway? “there’s always a _bunch_ of talking in our conversations.”

wenjun’s mouth dropped in disbelief at the claim, and he was getting ready to refute that one-person rambling did _not_ qualify as a conversation when zhengting loudly exclaimed that he was bored and they should all play a game, even going as far as to clap excitedly for no reason.

wenjun held back a retort - _silent charades,_ he wanted to suggest - before yanjun had already jumped to his feet, potato chip debate completely forgotten, and loudly proclaimed that they should play truth or dare. many people opted out immediately, much too aware of yanjun’s reputation. the man had both forged and destroyed college memories, relationships, and men’s dignities with just a simple game of truth or dare. all that were left to actually agree were yanjun, zhangjing (unfortunately obligated as yanjun’s boyfriend), ziyi (too nice of a person to not join), chengcheng (too stupid of a person to not join), zhengting, and wenjun (whom zhengting had taken the courtesy to volunteer as a player on wenjun’s behalf).

the misfortuned players circled around on the floor, leaving the rest of the group to either ignore what was about to transpire in the small vicinity or choose to float outside the edges of their poorly made circle, ready for tea to be spilled and prides to be stepped on.

the game started out easy enough. they played rock-paper-scissors to decide the first questioner, almost passing out when the two people holding up rock included lin yanjun. a quick game between yanjun and ziyi, though, yielded the latter as the winner, and everyone remembered to breathe again. ziyi asked chengcheng, chengcheng answered truth, and then continued to admit that, if he had to choose between going on a date between professor zhang or professor zhou, he would choose yixing over jieqiong in less than a heartbeat (the others collectively murmured their agreement). chengcheng dared zhangjing to go the rest of the night without eating, and the brunette immediately reached for a punishment shot in adamant refusal. zhangjing asked zhengting if he would rather always have to say what was on his mind or never speak again, and the little shit actually took a whole ten minutes contemplating like he didn’t already talk without a filter.

and, then, zhengting - wenjun was beginning to conclude there was a connecting factor in all of his recent problems - decided to ask yanjun, either completely oblivious of his reputation or highly aware of it. yanjun smirked and answered that he would rather stare at zhangjing for the rest of his life, even if it meant he would never be able to look in a mirror again. (everyone listening in gasped and reached for their phones, most likely to shitpost in group chats or make it known on social media that the university’s notorious playboy seemed to be whipped for the main vocal of the show choir.)

wenjun was a naturally aloof man, but wasn’t necessarily stupid enough to not realize that everyone in their circle had already been asked except for him. so he silently braced himself and prayed to god, promising that he would sell all his old yoyos and donate to charity, or maybe give up his position as president of the yoyo club, or start a non-profit organization in the city to teach little boys (and girls, because fuck gender roles) how to -

“he chooses dare!” zhengting interrupted before yanjun could even finish asking the question. wenjun broke out of his reverie in shock to stare at the boy sitting beside him with wide eyes. zhengting turned to look back at him, smiling innocently and doing that _fucking head tilt._ “oh, come on! live a little, wenjunnie!”

wenjun hit his forehead with his palm so strongly that the slap resounded throughout the room. yanjun chuckled. “okay. dare it is.” he hummed thoughtfully. “i’ll go easy for my first round. how about... kiss zhengting for 10 seconds.”

wenjun’s heart jumped just a little bit. was everything constituting his kind-of-friendship with zhengting going to be cliche as fuck? he turned to the side and saw zhengting, bug-eyed and mouth parted. he kind of looked like a fish. but, at least he was a pretty fish. maybe it was because xiao gui went a little overboard with the drinks; or the fact that wenjun had quite the self-pride and yanjun was looking at him with a challengingly raised eyebrow, all too aware of the fact that his current boyfriend, zhangjing, was wenjun’s ex. and, truth be told, wenjun actually hadn’t kissed anyone since they’d broken up three months prior, so maybe it was about fucking time to, as zhengting said, “live a little.”

so he shrugged and agreed.

“wait. _seriously?”_ zhengting’s eyes widened and his mouth parted even more. he cautiously whispered, _“are you sure?”_

“yeah, why not?” wenjun replied, wondering why zhengting was acting like he’d agreed to overdose on cocaine.

“i thought you were -” zhengting was almost yelling so he brought his voice down to a murmur, covering part of his mouth with his hand. “i thought you were _straight.”_

unfortunately, zhengting’s murmuring was reflective of an average person’s normal talking voice, so almost everybody in the room heard his little confession. and everybody who had heard it thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world, quickly turning to their colleagues and making sure they’d heard it too. 

“oh my _god,”_ chengcheng breathed out, falling over. “you though-” a wheeze. “wenjun-” a hiccup. _“straight.”_ a sound that resembled both a wheeze and a hiccup at the same time.

zhengting reddened, biting his lip. wenjun had never hated feeling attracted to a person so much before. what the fuck was wrong with this man?

“honestly, that would make a lot of sense,” zhangjing retorted, and the entire group fell into another, even more intense fit of laughter. xiao gui had taken out his phone and was furiously typing - either relaying the drama on weibo or writing song lyrics; he couldn’t decide which one was worse.

wenjun really didn’t know how to respond to the situation. zhengting was looking at him with that gaping fish face again and the entirety of his friend group was laughing at his bad luck and his ex - whom he was on _good terms with, to be clear_ \- had really just decided to gang up with his hot new boyfriend to ridicule him.

his mind had taken advantage of the opportunity and punctually blanked out on him. a resounding “uhhh” echoed in his skull. abandoned by both his friends and his brain, wenjun decided to just fuck it all - his luck honestly couldn’t get any worse - and grabbed zhengting’s face with two hands, pulling him closer.

kissing zhengting was an interesting experience. he hadn’t even frozen at the sudden action, responding immediately, like he’d been waiting for it. wenjun tried to ignore the fact that his lips were somehow even softer than they looked, and how they tasted a little like beer and strawberry chapstick - a flavor he never thought he would ever taste or ever think he’d like so fucking much. he tried to focus on the feeling of their mouths moving against each other gently, ignoring the urge to use tongue - because that’s too much for friends, right? 

when he pulled back, he licked his mouth hesitantly and urged his face with all the willpower stored up in his twig body to not go red as everyone whooped at his sudden action. or, at least not as red as zhengting, who’d reached a color similar to the strawberries he tasted like.

wenjun turned away from zhengting and breathily asked chengcheng, “truth or dare?” tried to ignore the feeling of his stomach and heart physically trying to escape out of his body because he’d just kissed one of the most attractive people he’d ever met (factoring out his unnecessary talking tendencies) and said attractive person was currently still staring at him, flustered and blushing, and trying to catch his breath.

chengcheng responded with dare and wenjun didn’t even remember what he said in reply - probably something stupid, like post an ugly 9-picture photoset on weibo - because he was really trying to ignore the fact that, as the tenth second had crept up on them and wenjun had moved backwards, he could’ve _sworn on his first yoyo_ that he’d felt zhengting’s tongue touch his bottom lip.

but that was really not a good thing to think about. because zhengting was pretty and wenjun was a fool. and they were just friends.

\---

“hey. wenjun.”

“yeah?”

“would you rather feel neutral all the time or be able to overwhelmingly feel - i don’t know - everything?”

“first of all, it’s 4 p.m. isn’t it a little too early for an existential crisis? and, well, wouldn’t it suck to not feel anything?”

“says the guy who never shows any emotion.”

“hey, i feel happiness! plus, there’s no point in focusing on feeling sad. haven’t you heard that saying that the sun comes after the rain?”

“okay, but that’s stupid. the sun is always there. if you choose to ignore the clouds.”

 _“okay,_ well, there you go, mr. optimism. then, choose to feel everything and always stare at the sun or whatever.”

“you know what, wenjun? you’re a pretty good friend when you want to be one.”

\---

wenjun felt like he’s been unwillingly pushed into a drama.

he knew everything thus far regarding zhengting was unnaturally banal, because it was zhengting. and zhengting had seemingly made an unspoken agreement with himself to live his life like he was some main character archetype. and that he did.

wenjun was in a coffee shop one time when zhengting walked in to order, somehow managing to convince the barista to give him the drink for free by flashing his trademark head tilt and pout. as zhengting strutted out, wenjun, eyes squinting and body leaning forward, could have sworn there was a series of numbers written under the drink order on his cup. zeren even told him that he was almost positive their calculus professor was in love with zhengting, even allowing him to run out of class spontaneously because xukun was sick and he needed to take care of him.

was zhengting in love with everyone he met or was everyone he met in love with him? wenjun didn’t quite know.

what he _did_ know was that zhengting, without fail, visited his dorm at 3:30 every tuesday and thursday - had been for the last three weeks - for the 1.5-hour break that fit right in between his calculus and literature classes. “too short of a time to do anything productive,” he claimed, even though wenjun hardly found that reasonable.

it didn’t matter much, though. those were wenjun’s easy days, and he was off by 1:45 anyway. he mostly just spent a couple of hours browsing weibo and watching peppa pig reruns until the clock hit 8 o’clock and he decided to guilt himself into productivity.

except. he just finished the episode when peppa pig played basketball and took a tentative glance at the top of his phone. it was 3:42, and wenjun didn’t necessarily _care,_ but it was such a zhengting thing to do to somehow get kidnapped in broad daylight. and wenjun was almost positive zhengting would slip out wenjun’s name while talking way too much with his kidnappers.

wenjun really didn’t want to pay ransom. plus, he was kind of bored.

he tried to play it off, switching to a new episode of _meteor garden_ (because he’d be lying if he said xi men’s presence didn’t encourage him to keep watching), but quickly found that it was almost a little too quiet without zhengting’s unnecessary commentary - “dao ming si’s pineapple head. i suddenly love fruit,” “if huaze lei told me to do a handstand, i would never walk on my feet again,” “what do i have to do to live my life surrounded by as many beautiful men as shancai?”

okay. it was 4:06. wenjun wasn’t _worried,_ per se. curious was a better word. or at least that’s what he told himself.

zeren was out for the rest of the day and it was a good thing that wenjun was home alone, because he would deny until the day he died that he stood up from the couch and shuffled over to the window. he was scolding himself the entire time - it was probably the dumbest thing he’d ever done - as he hooked a finger around the sheer curtain and just _slightly_ peeked outside.

he didn’t expect it to be raining. he also didn’t expect to see a faintly recognizable figure standing in the path just outside his dorm building, his back towards wenjun. blonde hair, dorito torso, long legs, all getting drenched as he stood there, frozen.

for fuck’s sake.

cue metaphorical filming, because when would wenjun _ever_ in a million years voluntarily step outside with an umbrella for another person? _stupid, stupid, stupid,_ his mind chanted as he exited through the front door and jogged closer. _fucking idiot,_ he thought to himself as he stopped right behind zhengting and raised his arm to shield the both of them with a thin barrier of plastic.

he carefully watched zhengting’s shoulders jump a little bit in surprise. his blonde head turned just slightly to the side, recognized wenjun, and turned back to the front, seemingly staring at nothing but an empty path bordered by dripping trees. there was the slightest smile on his lips.

“oh. hey, wenjun.”

“what the fuck are you doing out here?” he was thoroughly soaked from head to toe, acting like they were vacationing in the maldives or something.

zhengting waved a dismissive hand. “i don’t know. i was on my way over and it just started raining so much and i’ve never thought about it but... don’t you think it’s a little sad when rain falls so fast? like. imagine how many individual raindrops go by unacknowledged. they fall for us and we can’t even appreciate them.”

wenjun thought that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard in his entire life. 

his mouth shifted to the side as he prepared to retort, but then he looked at zhengting. realized he wasn’t even looking at him. noted the faint furrow between his eyebrows, so concentrated as thousands of raindrops like shooting stars flashed across his brown eyes.

felt a little tightening in his chest at the sudden desire to somehow slow down the clouds.

if only so zhengting could stare at each drop a little longer - even though it was extremely naive and childish and irrational. if only so wenjun could stand there and watch zhengting watch the world. he’d looked pretty before. always had. but, standing there, with hair turned almost brown, overgrown bangs matted down, an occasional drop like a tear running across his face, pursed lips and shining eyes, he’d never looked so beautiful.

and then he wanted to hit himself, because now he was being the stupid one.

wenjun sighed, transitioned the umbrella handle into his other hand and turned around. he felt his back brush against zhengting’s shoulders.

“what are you doing?” zhengting asked.

“i doubt you’re going to go inside until you’re satisfied. so, you watch that side and i’ll watch this side,” he mumbled with a tone that discouraged a reply.

zhengting, for once, understood the social cue. he hummed happily instead.

a good ten minutes later, wenjun gave up and was finally able to convince zhengting (who only acquiesced because the downpour had been reduced to a mere drizzle over time) back inside. he was trying to be a good friend, but the man was still intrinsically selfish and the humid climate wasn’t necessarily welcoming for standing outside in the rain (not a drop of rain had hit him and yet he was sheening with sweat, he noted with disgust).

they were on their way upstairs when a short discussion concluded that it would be best if zhengting hurried back to his dorm as quickly as possible so he could shower and avoid sickness so close to midterms, maybe even leaving some time for him to charm the cafeteria ladies to slide him some leftovers from the lunch rush before he headed off to literature. so, wenjun walked him back down to the front door (for no apparent reason, because zhengting should have been independent enough to do so himself) and wordlessly handed over his umbrella as zhengting made his way out. and ignored the dazzling smile sent towards him as zhengting accepted the offering.

feeling way too nasty for 4:30 in the afternoon and honestly so over the day after encountering zhengting (always an emotionally draining experience), wenjun immediately aimed for the shower when he got back to his dorm. preferably a moderately cold one.

he stood in there for a while, letting the water hit him and relieve him of the outside humidity. he’d forgotten to play music from his phone so he mused in silence, closed his eyes and allowed himself to wonder if this was what the rain would have felt like if he’d let his arm drop to remove the umbrella from above his head.

or, their heads - because, if he was outside and had opened his eyes and turned around, would zhengting have been there? staring ahead, so wenjun would once more wish for the ability to slow down clouds and slow down rain? or, just maybe, staring at him? and maybe wenjun would have forgotten the sweat making his clothes cling to his body and the way water soaked through the net in his sneakers and the rain and the time and everything else. and the abnormal thumping of his heart behind his ribcage. the feeling he’d never felt before.

he opened his eyes, scoffed silently, and turned the water off.

\---

“wenjun, have you ever been in love?”

“mmm. maybe i thought i was at the time.”

“at the time? isn’t love still present even when it’s the past - you know, like literature?”

“i don’t know. i don’t even think i know what love is.”

“well, i don’t think it needs a definition. i think love’s a lot of things. maybe you can just meet people and be like, yeah, that’s love.”

“you sound like you have experience.”

“of course! i love everyone. well, except i used to have this puppy back in my hometown and there were a couple of people who tried to tell me she was ugly. i don’t love those people.”

“right.”

\---

it was a friday evening when zhengting walked through his front door, dragging with him a familiar person wenjun hadn’t seen since their first encounter but had heard about many times - “xukun timed himself and he can literally spin a basketball on his finger for six minutes,” “he tried to make eggs and they always turn out scrambled and even though i hate scrambled eggs with a passion, i guess i’ve got to get used to them now because it’s just so endearing that he tried,” “do you think xukun would suit dao ming si’s pineapple head?”

and, even though wenjun lost a brain cell every time he heard xukun’s name - he’d even considered whether or not zhengting had a crush on his roommate or not but decided against it because zhengting acted like that with pretty much everyone (and, plus, zhengting would have told him, right?) - he listened to zhengting’s rambling about xukun. and zhengting’s rambling about everything else. because wenjun was a good friend like that.

and because he was in love with him.

because zhengting was zhengting. beautiful, childish, loud, always-staring-at-the-sun zhengting. the one who made him spill coffee on his shirt and even though his only white shirt was now an unforgiving beige, wenjun didn’t care because zhengting had stuck with him as much as the stain had. the one who caused his black eye and showed up at his door at ungodly hours because he wanted to watch netflix and kissed him unforgettably and made wenjun inconvenience himself. and made wenjun fall in love with him.

quiet, antisocial, unnaturally emotionless wenjun. wenjun, who didn’t like talking or smiling or doing anything. but realized how much he might have liked talking if it meant he could see zhengting throw his head back like that and laugh like that and violently slap his shoulder like he did. realized how much he liked smiling if zhengting would smile back at him with those big white teeth and pink lips and upturned eyes.

zhengting made him realize what it was like to fall in love when he didn’t know what love was. the racing heart and stuttering breath and tightening lungs symptoms that made him think he had somehow turned obese without any physical cause. but the only part of him that had fattened was his heart, as disgusting as it was to admit for wenjun.

zhengting told him one night that love was so many things that it needed no definition. and who was wenjun to disagree? as he tried to tell zhengting words he’d never said before without saying them - going to the store and buying another umbrella so he didn’t need to ask for his back because he knew zhengting didn’t have one of his own (stupid boy), never refusing when zhengting wanted to watch _just one more episode, please?_ even though it was almost three in the morning and wenjun had a test on the mongolian invasion in eight hours, texting zhengting to ask if he got home safely because zhengting was zhengting and zhengting loved feeling loved.

but wenjun, obviously enough, was bad at talking and new to loving.

“hi, wenjunnie!” zhengting exclaimed. xukun waved lightly with the hand free from zhengting’s grasp.

“hey,” wenjun said, surprised at the additional person entering, and closed the door behind them.

xukun silently excused himself to the bathroom and wenjun turned to raise his eyebrows in question at zhengting. as someone who was specific about the people he hung out with, he would normally be perturbed by the sudden entrance, but it was kind of impossible to be mad at zhengting for doing perturbing things, especially when he was beaming right back at him.

“i know you really don’t like uninvited guests over, but it’s really important, i pinky-promise!” see? difficult to get mad. “okay, like, i still don’t really know what happened because it’s confusing. but things between me and kun have been really weird the last couple weeks or so and i really didn’t know what was going on because sometimes he would be weird and i would be weird so like last night he got mad at something stupid - like i literally didn’t put the toothpaste cap on correctly - and it started a fight. but, not like a fight-fight. i don’t know. and then we -” zhengting stopped, ramble interrupted by a blushing smile. he looked away from wenjun to look at his hands, playing with his fingers, lightly giggling in excitement. “anyway, i just really wanted to tell you. xukun and i are together! oh my god, isn’t it, like, straight out of a romance drama?”

“oh.” _oh._ “right.”

hanging out with zhengting and xukun was an interesting experience. it wasn’t often that zhengting would show up without his boyfriend anymore, and wenjun honestly couldn’t decide if he could comfortably hang out with zhengting alone when his heart wouldn’t stop beating with a rebellious fervor, when he would flinch at every touch because he was really trying to ignore all of his feelings. because wenjun was zhengting’s friend.

and zhengting was just happy and that was all he could ask for. even when they sat on the couch watching movies and wenjun would make a sarcastic comment and, instead of seeing that head throw back and feeling a slap on his shoulder, zhengting would turn his head to explain the inside joke to xukun. even when it wasn’t him zhengting was smiling for. the smile that was still there but somehow seemed brighter than before and wasn’t directed at him. 

he saw the outline of a side profile like a painting and the crinkle of a nose as zhengting hit xukun’s chest and realized why. because zhengting was too beautiful to love slowly, to keep to himself. it was his fault. and wenjun blamed himself for not talking more, smiling more, loving more. blamed himself for not being able to slow down the clouds for someone who attracted the attention of the whole universe and blamed himself for fast rain.

because, at the end of the day, zhengting was the main lead in a world made small and deserved someone who made him feel as such. and wenjun was destined to be a side character.

it was another friday evening months later and zhengting skipped through his front door as excitedly as usual, left arm swinging as he held xukun’s hand. wenjun moved to close the door behind them before a foot stepped through the threshold. he stopped at seeing the sudden addition, the back of a red head glaring back at him as the guest walked towards his couch.

“i’m sorry!” zhengting whispered loudly in his ear. (he shifted five centimeters away so zhengting’s breath would stop tickling the area under his ear.) “xukun’s cousin is visiting because he’s moving in next year and we didn’t want to leave him alone.”

“it’s okay,” wenjun said, because it was zhengting. and even made an effort to introduce himself.

“hi. i’m xinchun,” the redhead responded shyly. at least he was quiet.

they were halfway through _yesterday once more_ when tianjiao and gao xiang were sitting under the stars. wenjun, chin in his hand and entirely too irked by cliche romances at that point, mumbled a halfhearted, “i would wish for some chicken nuggets.”

he ignored zhengting’s giggling because he’d learned that not watching helped a little in not listening. even though he felt like shit and felt even more like shit because he secretly wished zhengting would stop laughing and that was shitty of him.

but, suddenly, outsounding even zhengting’s laugh, was another one. wenjun looked over and there was a random boy with red hair and a large mole on his nose looking right at him and laughing, his hand coming up to cover his mouth and cheeks pushing up to turn his eyes into crescents.

wenjun stared back. felt his heart beat gratefully. and then he smiled back.

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally just anti-biting propaganda
> 
> i hope you liked this trash
> 
> (p.s. pls love wubaiwan and watch yesterday once more bc i love bai jingting)


End file.
